But everything had changed one day in a seedy bar in Manila. Wijeya and what was left of his crew at the time—Mhusa, Lemat and two or three others—had been drinking away their latest failure, determined to use up the last of their coin. Staring into the bottom of a dirty glass full of rum, not sure what he would do next or how he would survive, Wijeya had thought perhaps he was destined to keep failing at life. Bitter recriminations had rolled through his mind, waves crashing on the breakers of his failed dreams.
But then a stranger had handed him a business card.
Wijeya remembered looking up at the stranger. The man had the look of a go-between, a messenger. Nothing about his features was remarkable. The stranger had nodded once at the card then disappeared into the smoky darkness of the bar.
On the card was written nothing but a phone number. It had taken a few more drinks before Wijeya’s curiosity got the better of him. Expecting some sort of scam, some kind of confidence routine, he had dialed the number, prepared to take out his frustrations on whoever answered. It would feel good to shout at someone. Perhaps then he would get into a fight. With the cracked receiver of the bar’s pay phone to his lips, he listened to the ringing at the other end while sizing up the other patrons in the bar.
There, he thought. That one. The one with the fat face and the loud mouth. He looks like he might be Samoan. I will enjoy putting my fist through that face.
But then a voice had answered the telephone call.
Over the course of many telephone calls to come, Wijeya would come to know that voice, the voice of his benefactor, very well. The voice had told him that a very special man was being sought, a man who could take instructions exactly. The reward for following such instructions would be wealth and success, more than any pirate could ever want. The means through which this would be done were simple: all a good pirate needed to conquer even the largest vessels was the correct weaponry. Would the latest XM-Thorn rockets, capable of sinking even a cruise ship, not be sufficient to such a task?
Wijeya had told the voice he thought it might be.
And so Wijeya had entered into the service of the mysterious voice. He supposed he would never know how long the voice’s agents had spied on him, watched him and evaluated him before Wijeya was finally given the business card. It did not matter. He did not care. All he cared about was money. Thanks to his benefactor, thanks to the voice, there had been plenty of that.
Wijeya had often considered the possibility that his was not the only crew his benefactor had chosen to finance. This simply made sense. Whatever the voice might be trying to accomplish, the pirate attacks were clearly being coordinated across a large area. That explained why the coordinates were so precise, and it also explained the voice’s insistence on strict timetables. A single pirate ship that started attacking where it was not supposed to could easily run afoul of other crews funded by the voice, could it not? At least, that was how it seemed to Wijeya. Not for the first time, he pondered what it was his benefactor might be trying to do. And then…what would happen to Wijeya and his crew when the voice achieved its goal?
In the back of his mind Wijeya knew that there was great danger here. It might not be near. It might be many years yet in coming. But he was not stupid. He knew that his benefactor had something more in mind than simply advancing the lifestyles of pirate crews. Wijeya’s attacks were very specific, conducted at times and locations of the voice’s choosing. Sometimes the targets were also specified, and other times it was enough that he find any vessel within a given range of coordinates. Just what this was accomplishing for the voice, Wijeya did not and could not know. But he knew he was a pawn. He knew that when his usefulness to the voice ended, he would either be cut loose to make his own way or he would be killed.
The former was, fortunately, the more likely. A man of wealth and power who had little time to spare on hellos or goodbyes would hardly occupy himself with the assassination of one such as Wijeya. It was far more possible that one day the calls and the weapons would stop coming. At that point, it would be up to Wijeya to leverage the success they had experienced thus far.
Already, he and his crew were several steps ahead of most typical pirates. They were not scrounging just to eat. They were actually making a profit. Most of his men drank and whored their way through whatever shares they earned. Mhusa, who cared as little for money as he did for the future, gave most of his earnings away. Lemat was investing his and probably had a foreign bank account, as well, but then, Lemat was always overqualified to be a pirate. He had been some kind of accountant or businessman in his previous life, before a disgrace had prompted him to leave. How a man like that managed to adapt to life at sea, Wijeya did not know. But Lemat had already managed to serve with distinction aboard a cruise ship, acting as purser, before he’d been caught embezzling and thrown in prison. Wijeya had caught wind of it in yet another portside bar. Sailors talked. He had needed someone who could help him with the financial aspects of his business. So he had bribed Lemat’s way out of jail and spread around enough money to ensure the Frenchman’s freedom that Lemat was beholden to Wijeya from that point on.
Wijeya had also explained to Lemat that, should the Frenchman ever steal from Wijeya as he had stolen from previous employers, Wijeya would flay him alive. The warning seemed to have had its desired effect.
The Penuh Belut passed through a pall of black smoke wafting from the deck of the target freighter. Wijeya waited while his men moored the tenders alongside the motor craft, which were secured to the sides of the target vessel with grappling hook lines. Each launch had one man with an AK-47 in it, to stand as guards. Wijeya’s other crewmen, led by his first mate, the one-eyed Liberian, Mhusa, would already be aboard. He could hear sporadic gunfire, but it was all the hollow metallic clatter of Kalashnikovs. That meant his men had control of the target ship.
Lemat threw a grapple, the line to which was also connected to a rope ladder. Crewmen already aboard the target freighter hauled the line up and pulled the rope ladder with it. Wijeya used this to ascend, planting his feet on the deck of his prize. His attack crews were already rounding up the enemy sailors. A cluster of prisoners stood on the deck. Mhusa, with his AK-47, glowered at them. A nearby pile of captured rifles showed that most were bolt-action Mausers. There were a few ancient Russian rifles mixed in, and one or two M-1 carbines. A few clips of ammunition were scattered among the pile. The poor sailors had not had much with which to work. They had been no match for Wijeya’s men.
Mhusa separated an older man from the group of prisoners and shoved him forward. “This is their captain,” he said. “His name is Gable.”
“Take your hands off me!” said Captain Gable. “This is a violation of maritime law!”
Wijeya stood in front of Captain Gable. He reached behind his back and withdrew the machete from its scabbard. “There is no law here,” he said. “There is only strength.” He motioned to Mhusa, who forced Gable to kneel. To the Liberian, Wijeya said, “Lean him forward. I want a clear shot at his neck.”
“What?” Gable protested. “You can’t be serious.”
“Kill the others,” Wijeya ordered. There was a sudden thunderous report as two of Wijeya’s men opened up with their automatic Kalashnikovs, murdering the survivors among Gable’s crew. The dead prisoners fell to the deck on top of one another. The spreading pool of blood quickly reached Wijeya’s boots.
“Wait,” Gable said. “Wait!”
Wijeya raised the machete. “No survivors,” he repeated.
“There’s no need for that!” pleaded Gable. “You don’t…I mean, we can work something out! Ransom, yes? My company would probably pay a ransom. You don’t have to—”
“Yes,” said Wijeya. “I do.”
The razor-sharp blade of the machete sang downward.